Around fifteen years ago, some big brands started playing in Second Life. For me, memorable names and what they did include General Motors with a cool Pontiac sports car: that’s virtual me behind the virtual wheel in the photo above. GM issued a press release in October 2006 about starting up in SL. There was Dell who experimented not only with letting you configure and buy a computer in Second Life but also getting customer service and tech support. They…
Two things happened recently that reminded me of the saying “what goes around, comes around” but in a good way. Both things concern the metaverse, Web 3 and Internet 2. These are terms that everyone is talking about online and offline, yet no one seems to be talking about them from the same page. The most recent reminder came a few days ago in a tweet from Joe Garde in Dublin who noted the state of things back in 2008.…
It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make the metaverse the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. How do we ensure everyone has a say in how it develops? It’s a question Shel and I considered in the primary discussion in the August episode of The Hobson & Holtz Report aka episode 210 of the For Immediate Release podcast published on August 23. We started with a…
It seems that you can’t pick up a magazine or newspaper these days without seeing lengthy articles that focus on the negative side of Second Life. The latest comes from Time magazine in a feature last week. Reality is catching up with Second Life, says the magazine in its article entitled Second Life’s Real-World Problems. Like others before it, this article talks about companies who have departed the virtual world for one reason or another, usually referencing disappointment with objectives…
